There is still time to submit your accessible app as part of the App for All Challenge with the date being extended to Wednesday July 23 2014.

The categories in which you can submit your nominations include: most accessible main stream app, most innovative app for seniors, most accessible children’s app, and most accessible game app.

Submit your nominations to:

appsforall@accan.org.au

http://accan.org.au/our-work/app

Zagga - Upcoming Video Description On Demand Streaming Service

This service is to come online in the fall or spring on our side of the world. This paid subscription service will allow you to stream audio described movies, TV shows etc to your computer, phone or tablet.

The subscription price will be comparable to other paid subscription services. Even though the service is world wide, due to copyright restrictions, some content will only be available in certain countries.

You can sign up now to register for the service, and you will be noticed when it is online.

They have a few sample video s which you can watch/lisen to including Up, Toy Story, and a few others.

http://zagga.tv/how-it-works/

AccessWorld for July 2014

Amongst other things in this issue were the Perkins Smart Brailler, ($2195) and the ScanSnap SV600 over head scanner ($799).

The developers of NVDA have received a grant from the NIPPON foundation which will ensure the ongoing development and support of this free screen reader for Windows in to the future.

The Japan-based Nippon Foundation supports many social innovation projects, including those which enhance the lives of disabled people in the developing world. NVDA is valued by people in over 120 countries, but it has a particularly profound effect on the lives of people in developing countries. Without NVDA, blind people in many developing countries would never have been able to use a computer.

Thursday, 3 July 2014

Changes to Vision Australia Texpo Dates for 2014

Vision Australia’s technology exhibition (Texpo) which used to be held in August, will now be held in October. In addition, rather than being held at 3 sites (Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane), it will now be held at two sites to be rotated yearly.

Texpo will be on the 10th/11th and the 17th/18th of October, with the locations yet to be decided.

The Voice Dream Reader app which currently runs on iOS (iPhone, iPod touch or iPad), makes it very easy to access the I-Access service via the Add/Web site function.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/voice-dream-reader/id496177674?mt=8

In Apple news

The 16GB iPod touch seems to have vanished from the online Apple store, and whilst it came back in the US store cheaper, it has not reappeared in the Australian store. At the moment, there is only the 32gb/64GB iPod touch’s, although reduced in price: $299.00 and $349.00 respectively.

Interestingly, the other week I said that VoiceOver has been around for 5 years now, well it turns out that on June 29 2014, the iPhone was released 7 years ago.

This week, iOS 7.12, Apple TV 6.2, and Mavericks 10.9.4 were all released.

5 Ways Google is Taking on Apple from Google iO held in June 2014 - from Macworld